Newsroom

Newsroom

Posted Jul 09, 2007 by Jon Wood

Every Week, Community Manager Laura Genender takes a look at one or more of the entries being created in our MMORPG.com blogs. This week, she looks at someone who is using the blog system to create an interesting MMORPG design document.

Our forums have always played host to a slew of MMO development ideas: players saying what they want to see in the next hit game. With our new blog system, though, blogger Artermis is presenting a full game design document.

The game, called Riftwalkers, is still in the early stages of presentation - so it's hard to tell whether it will all come together - but some unique ideas and idea combinations have been presented. For example, Artermis suggests that players will control multiple characters, a new fad idea that seems like it will be a big hit with the long-time players. Gamers love to multitask, and playing hybrids, such as paladins or shadow knights, are being turned down in favor of multiple characters: a warrior, a cleric, and a necromancer can achieve more than any single hybrid.

Some of the systems that Artermis suggests, while ideal and awesome, I'm not sure if they'd work in a functioning MMO. One example of this is having "no NPCs besides MOBs". While player created economies are awesome, and as Artermis says, "static content is not what we are trying to achieve, dynamic and player created content is the aim," this presents a severe issue for late night/early morning players, and for newbie zones as players level past newbie content.